Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has warned users of Red Hat Linux that they will have to pay Microsoft for its intellectual property. "People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us," Ballmer said last week at a company event in London discussing online services in the UK.

No, these are very different cases. GPL just prevents illegal use of code, you are free to implement the same kind of algorithms, just not to steal someones implementation.
Software Patents try to prevent anyone to implement the same kind of algorithm, which mostly are algorithms which are obvious solutions, have been implemented earlier by other people or, while maybe not dead obvious, are one of the few possible solutions anyone would come to when trying to do something. That is why software Patents are such a big problem: they usually aren't *at all* an innovation and while programming you might infringe them just by choosing an obvious solution for a problem.
So far, Microsoft has failed to proof even one single patent infringement.

That was a wacky interpretation of copyright that doesn't sync with other plagiarism defenses. Not only that but it did not follow through on material slander defense by calling forfeit on patents Ballmer might claim if he does not enter suit and proper claim in 50 days. I would cite law but prefer: 'Kick butt, lose tablets.'

It might make sense in some country in which Microsoft does business though! Chinese (PRC) courts, right? I mean there, the fact that UI defects and cluelessness have been copied outside of parody could be very serious punitive items. Then where would our desire to serve oppressive regimes as HALO soldiers be?